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August 31, 2011

As the list will be published by FIFA in a few weeks, here is my final prospective list of referees joining FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil.
My prospective list contains my opinion combined with what I think FIFA thinks ..

Protect the players – protect the image of the game. This is the message being given by UEFA to Europe's international referees as they move into another hectic season of club and national-team duty.

UEFA's chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina spelt out the message at UEFA's European football kick-off events in Monaco. He also underlined the overall satisfaction with the ongoing experiment with two additional assistant referees, and highlighted the December date with destiny for Europe's elite match officials as they strive to be appointed for next summer's UEFA EURO 2012 finals in Poland and Ukraine.

Protecting the players, Collina said, meant taking action against serious foul play and reckless tackles. "We do not want to see broken legs," the Italian emphasised. "We have to avoid the potential for a player to see his health endangered by someone else. We do not need doctors on the pitch. We have to convince players not to put the safety of an opponent in danger. Respecting opponents and protecting players is one of our main objectives.

"The other main aim is to protect football's image," Collina added. "We don't want to see referees mobbed by players. We are experiencing situations where players run from a long distance to put pressure on and crowd the referee. We are recommending referees not to accept this kind of behaviour." The message has been reiterated to the referees at this week's UEFA summer gathering in Nyon.

Collina also spoke of the punishment that faces players who deliberately provoke a yellow card to receive a suspension. "Players will receive a two-match ban," he stressed. "This is clear – you cannot decide when you want to be suspended."

The experiment with additional assistant referees continues this season in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, and the two additional assistants will also be deployed at UEFA EURO 2012. "Very positive feedback has been received from the referees," Collina said. "They feel they have a better control of what is happening on the pitch, and that the presence of the additional assistants is serving as a deterrent against holding or pulling offences in the penalty area from set pieces."

As with any experiment, improvements are being sought constantly – the positioning of the additional assistants has been changed, and special efforts are being made to make the public more aware of the role of these assistants.

Moreover, Collina explained the UEFA refereeing set-up. The UEFA Referees Committee, he said, comprises 16 members appointed by the UEFA Executive Committee. Chairman Ángel María Villar Llona and deputy chairman Şenes Erzik are both members of the UEFA Executive Committee and all the other members are former referees.

Referee preparation, meanwhile, involves three main areas – physical, technical, and development and future. Referees receive training programmes, nutrition instructions and advice, and their fitness levels are subject to remote monitoring. Fitness tests throughout the season and medical examinations complete the thorough catalogue of activities – including a visual ability test to ensure that referees can 'fix a vision', take an 'instant photograph' of an incident, focus on close or moving objects and react to movements around them.

The referees are also regularly followed by UEFA Referees Committee members and observers for assessment and coaching reasons. Courses are held for different referee levels, and development and future activities include the talents and mentors scheme, as well as training at UEFA's Centre of Refereeing Excellence (CORE) within the UEFA Centre of Football Excellence in Nyon.

The refereeing teams for UEFA EURO 2012 will be chosen in December. "Referees from the UEFA elite category will be monitored until then, the list of the 12 selected quintets of match officials will be finalised in December, and the selected match officials will then be monitored from February until May 2012," said Collina. "The selected quintets will work together." A EURO preparation workshop will be held in Warsaw next May, and the assistant referees are set to receive specialist coaching.

August 29, 2011

As usual, the German referee head Herbert Fandel had some special announcements for the new Bundesliga season concerning issues in and off the pitch. He told the German tabloid "Bild" a few weeks ago:

"It is out of the question that coaches are madly jumping. There were some cases at the sideline which will not be possible anymore." (excerpt: Bild, 3rd August 2011)

Jürgen Klopp and Stefan Trautmann...

In the last year's first half of the season, Jürgen Klopp - coach of the champions Dortmund - clashed with the Fourth Official Stefan Trautmann (photo r.) in the match between Dortmund and Hamburg after the main referee Deniz Aytekin did not give free-kick to Dortmund after an obvious foul. In the 2nd leg between those two teams, Klopp turned in a freaky cheers-sprint after his team equalized in the very last minute. For both scenes, he received a punishment (10.000 €).

Moreover, several coaches attacked referees in after-match-interviews so that Fandel seemed to have felt compelled to urge the 18 Bundesliga coaches and their assistants to avoid that.

"..there were some cases at the sideline which will not be possible anymore.", really Mr Fandel?

Last Saturday, the first top clash of the recently started Bundesliga season was held when Leverkusen met Dortmund; correspondent to the importance of this match, DFB appointed the German WC 2010 trio for this match: Wolfgang Stark, Jan-Hendrik Salver and Mike Pickel while Bundesliga referee Markus Schmidt functioned as Fourth Official.

And again, Klopp showed a behaviour that cannot be accepted by the referee; this time, he blamed Stark for a straight red card given to the German "Super-Mario" Götze. This time, Klopp even shouted at the TV moderator who only wanted to get to know his opinion on this dismission (one could really feel sorry with the helpless Sky-reporter..). In his interview, he then attacked Stark and stated that his perfomance "was no worldclass", but this was the kindest sentence in Klopp's monologue.

But what happened? A review in a nutshell:

- 45th minute: Leverkusen got the ball and had a promising counter, 3 against 3. What did Stark do? He whistled for half-time. A "by-the-book" decision without any sensitivity; he then cautioned Renato Augusto for kicking the ball away (just to let out steam...).

- 62th minute: Mats Hummels (Dortmund) fouled Augusto who was on the way to the goal, a clear tactical foul, he was already booked, has to be sent off, Stark only gave free-kick

- 65th minute: Michal Kadlec (Leverkusen) was dismissed for a foul from behind, rude foul, clear red card. Stark gave a straight red, although he had already seen yellow, good to send him off with a straight red!

- 71st minute: Götze was in front of the goal, slided away and slipped with foot-up into the goalkeeper, Stark gave only yellow, too less in my opinion.

Calm but strict: Stark dismissed Super-Mario Götze

- 77th minute: Götze was fouled by Balitsch and was then dismissed for a trial of retaliation. Correct decision.

- 83rd minute: Dortmund scored the first goal after a free-kick, but Stark was on the way to the Fourth Official, the free-kick was not released by him; sent then the Dortmund assistant coach off but forgot a yellow for the early execution of the free-kick.

- 90th minute: Dortmund wants to change, three times Stark tried to allow this substitution, however, the match had too small interruptions. The player who should come in was angry about that (Kehl) and shoved the Fourth Official Schmidt who noticed everything.

Who said that Bundesliga is boring ?!

The DFB sports tribunal has banned Kadlec for three matches, at the moment, they are negotiating suspensions against Götze, Dortmund's assistant coach but perhaps Klopp and Kehl as well...UPDATE: Kehl has been suspended for two matches. Mario Götze has been suspended for two matches and has to pay 10.000 €.

The Dutchman Björn Kuipers has been appointed to referee today's UEFA Supercup Final between the last season's winners of CL and EL (Barcelona and Porto). The final will be held in Monte Carlo/Monaco).

As he did not appear in the CL Play-Offs, this appointment was no bigger surprise, even though only more experienced referees like Larsen, de Bleeckere or Busacca got these matches in the past. Kuipers regular assistant referee Sander van Roekel misses the final, UEFA has appointed Erwin Zeinstra instead of him, that is a surprise indeed.

August 12, 2011

FIFA has chosen the next four referees who will be in charge of the quarterfinals of U20 World Cup 2011 held in Colombia. Although I had them in "Nuestras Designaciones" (in Carlos' blog) as well, they are a bit problematic as FIFA did not seem to have thought of the last four matches...I am excited how they will manage that.
These are the appointments:

It is a matter of yesterday's FIFA Under 20 World Cup Round of 16 match in Colombia between France and Ecuador when the only goal of the evening scored by France was given by the Korean referee Kim Dong-Jin, although some people of the community have seen an offside position there. As there is no good youtube video for this situation, you can use FIFA.com's service HERE.

The main question is: Did the French player who was offside influence the goalkeeper's reaction, behaviour or view? If yes, it is surely offside and consequently a match decisive mistake, that is what I thought before..)

Let us consult - again - FIFA Laws of the Game:

LAW 11 - Offside - FIFA Laws of the Game 2011/2012 - Page 33

A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:
- interfering with play or
- interfering with an opponent or
- gaining an advantage by being in that position

The case of "gaining an advantage by being in that position" stands - in my opinion - for the situation if the reaction or view of the goalkeeper will be influenced by the player being in an offside position.

Was that the case? To my mind, not really. He had enough time to react; furthermore, the French who was offside made no move to get the ball as he surely recognized that he cannot get it, in addition, he was about one metre away from the ball from the goalkeeper's perspective.

In my opinion, this rule is out of the question as the Assistant Referees have to..

- pay attention to the moment when the ball is played

- be at level with the last defender

- decide in approximately 0,5 seconds whether the player was in offside and whether he is active or passive and finally...

- interpret whether the goalkeeper was influenced by that.

How should one handle that in extremely close situations?

Interpretation, that is the key word. In the school, there one says: "Every interpretation is correct or is not wrong as long as there are good reasons for it." These good reasons exist for both sides in this specific situation, for offside and for onside.

From my point of view, it is onside and therefore a correct and important decision made by Byoung Eun Yang.

The most important thing is that nobody can say that it was a mistake, because in this situation, where it was a 50-50 decision, there is simply no totally wrong decision. The rule emphasizes the expression "in the opinion of the referee", an opinion never is wrong.

The next CAF Africa Cup of Nations will be held in Gabon/Equatorialguinea from 21st January to 12th February 2012. Now, it is time for a very early list of referees I thought of.
Upon consultation with Carlos, we decided to put Codjia on the list as well..unfortunately.
There are normally 16 referees and 16 assistant referees including one referee and two assistant referees coming from AFC zone. Last times, there were Nishimura (2008) and Al Ghamdi (2010).
The first prospective list contains 18 referees from CAF zone and 2 from AFC zone (22 AR, 3 AR).

August 7, 2011

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August 5, 2011

After Carlos and Maicon did it in their blog for several tournaments in the past, I will establish this game here as well, but only for UEFA Champions-League.Everyone who wants to participate can do that (mail to footballrefereeing.blogspot@gmx.de)
These points will be given:
- 1 point for the correct matchday appearance (that means: if you appoint Rizzoli for Match 1 but he appears in Match 2, you will get 1 point)
- 3 points for the correct nation (that means: if you appoint Rizzoli for Match 1 but Rocchi is appointed, you will get 3 points)
- 5 points for the correct referee

UPDATE/NOTE: As Meyer is injured, he cannot referee any of those matches. Those who are concerned can send me a replacement.

Just as warm-up: a mixture of the official CL Intro and Wembley Final's anthem:

As Pierluigi Collina announced a few days ago that he will choose the 12 referees for the next UEFA Euro in Poland and Ukraine in December, it is time for doing some predictions.

One has to mention that the appointments depend on UEFA's decisions concerning the new system after IFAB has announced that additional assistant referees will be used again. Therefore: how will they appoint them? A single country team? Or let us say eight pairs of additional assistant referees from different countries as the main referee? Will there be 4th Officials from Poland or Ukraine?

In addition to this, there are some "battles" or "duels" between referees coming from the same country. As he will choose the referees in December, it means that all the referees are on the current Elite list.

Therefore, I will go through the whole Elite list and finally, I will come to a result which consists of two different lists...

1. England

Martin Atkinson has shown a very good last season when he was appointed several times for important Europa League matches (e.g. the 1/2 2nd leg between Braga and Benfica) or when he oversaw the sparkling CL quarterfinal between Internazionale and Schalke 04 (2-5). It is obvious that he got more and better matches than the World Referee of 2010, Howard Webb. Furthermore, Atkinson was always assisted by Mullarkey and Kirkup, this may be another indication for the fact that Atkinson may have overtaken Webb in UEFA competitions, although I simply cannot imagine that Webb has to stay home after all his finals and good matches.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Darren Cann, Stephen Child, Peter Kirkup, Michael Mullarkey.

2. Spain

One of those difficult duels is apparent in Spain where one always had the agony of choice. In Euro 2008, Cantalejo was "defeated" by Mejuto Gonzalez. Nowadays, the two names are Alberto Undiano Mallenco and Carlos Velasco Carballo (r.). I cannot remember that there was any referee in history who had his first season in Champions-League, immediately got five matches including a semifinal and the EL final.

Whereas Undiano's liked by FIFA. Although he had a poor World Cup, he again got matches like Chelsea vs Manchester United where he made an important mistake.

When following my feeling, I think that Velasco Carballo is at the moment the clear no.1 of Spain in UEFA competitions..in Primera Division, there are other ones. Another clue can be that Undiano's AR1 Martinez will retire from international refereeing in 2012 (born in 1966)

Well, yesterday I talked with Carlos about this topic and we also talked about the opportunity that there is no French referee, as it was the case in 2008 where Lannoy was only 4th Official. Taking the current perfomances into consideration shown by Stéphane Lannoy and Laurent Duhamel, we will not see a French for sure.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Eric Dansault, Laurent Ugo, Mikhael Annonier.

4. Germany

The country with the highest number of Elite referees although we can easily say that Florian Meyer will not join the competition. Another of these close duels will be between Wolfgang Stark and Felix Brych (r.). Both showed strong perfomances in last season's CL where Stark had "the honour" of refereeing "El clásico". He showed courage to make the correct decisions and was not influenced by Mourinho, the players and the whole atmosphere. No perfect perfomance, but who does expect that in this match?

Brych is a high-flyer as he quickly moved up to the peak of European referees. He was elected by the community as 4th best referee of the last season. He showed that he is capable to convince even in big matches and with his 36 years (today it is his birthday), the future is widely opened for the Bavarian. I do not want to say that it will certainly be Stark or Brych, see the lists below.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Mark Borsch, Mike Pickel, Jan-Hendrik Salver, Thorsten Schiffner.

5. Hungary

Viktor Kassai will make it without any doubt..no words to say about him except World Cup semifinal and Champions-League final in Wembley..

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Gabor Eros, Gyorgy Ring, Tibor Vamos

6. Italy

The clear no.1 in Italy is of course Nicola Rizzoli (r.) and we can certainly focus on him as Gianluca Rocchi will have no chance at all. Pierluigi Collina comes from the same referee academy like Rizzoli (in Bologna), consequently he will be in Poland/Ukraine for 100%.

He showed an outstanding perfomance in the first leg of Arsenal vs Barca in CL 1/8 finals.

Moreover, he has been elected by you to the 3rd best referee of the past season.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Elenito Di Liberatore, Renato Faverani, Luca Maggiani, Andrea Stefani

7. Netherlands

Björn Kuipers should be the clear favourite as Kevin Blom did not manage to convince me in his first Elite season. Kuipers oversaw the U21 Euro final between Germany and England in 2009 and the fact that he was invited by FIFA to last year's Club World Cup shows that he must be on FIFA's prospective list which means that UEFA cannot presume to tell him he must stay at home.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Berry Simons, Sander van Roekel

8. Norway

Well, there is only one Elite member with the young Svein Moen who got the final appointment at the latest u17 World Cup in Mexico in front of 99.000 visitors in Estádio Azteca. He showed good perfomances in CL last year and he may be a certain contender for Euro 2012.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Frank Andas, Kim Thomas Haglund, Geir Age Holen

9. Portugal

What I have said about Spain and Germany counts for Portugal as well. I cannot say without any doubt who will make it: Olegário Benquerenca or Pedro Proenca? Both showed good perfomances last season although Proenca got the better matches. This is often a clue for UEFA's opinion but can UEFA leave a 1/4 referee of the last World Cup at home?

A difficult case can be observed in Russia. I had a small arguement with Carlos about Aleksei Nikolaev yesterday. In Mexico, he got four matches including a semifinal but our marks pointed out that he was the 3rd worst referee of this u17 competition (average mark 6,8).

His first season as Elite referee was not good but not bad. His CL group stage matches were pretty easy and he showed good or decent perfomances. Then, he got his first chance to confirm what UEFA saw so far in a K.O. Round match: Valencia vs Schalke. Unfortunately, he was a total failure as he did not get even basics right, missed obvious card, gave unnecessary ones and finally forgot that a German player had already been booked so that his AR2 Averyanov hat to told him that...his last match was in EL quarterfinals the encounter between Villarreal and Twente where no real improvement could be observed.

Consequently, we have to question that UEFA can put a referee on the Euro 2012 list who struggled in matches when he was under pressure. In my opinion, it is impossible but you never know..

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Anton Averyanov, Thikon Kalugin

11. Scotland

The Scot Craig Alexander Thomson should be taken into consideration as well. I can imagine that UEFA wants to have some experienced referees and some young referees. Thomson would count to the first group.

He had good perfomances last year and consequently, he might be a real option.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Graham Chambers, Martin Cryans, George Drummond

12. Slovenia

Damir Skomina (r.) joined Euro 2008 as 4th Official when he sent two coaches off (the Austrian and German trainers). He showed pretty good perfomances in the last two seasons, although his first quarterfinal in CL between Schalke and Internazionale was not good. However, I think that Skomina should be in Poland/Ukraine for sure as well.

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Primoz Arhar, Marko Stancin

13. Sweden

After names like Frisk or Frojdfeldt, the Swedish refereeing is slightly depraved. Jonas Eriksson, the only Swedish referee on Elite list, showed good perfomances overall and got one 1/8 final, too.

However, I wonder whether it is enough for a Euro..the fact that Strombergsson owns the future of Swedish refereeing emphasizes that. I do not think he has a chance..

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Henrik Andren, Mathias Klasenius, Stefan Wittberg

14. Turkey

Cuneyt Cakir (r.) showed impressing perfomances last season, e.g. in ManCity vs Dynamo Kyiv or in his CL group stage match between Bremen and Internazionale. His style has future and the first two matches we saw at FIFA U20 World Cup which is held in Colombia at the moment were very very convincing, too. I hope he is on the list, but the fact that he is only on Elite list for two months might be a reason for UEFA not to take him, but Erzik should be able to abolish such doubts..

Possible Assistant Referees for Euro 2012:

Bahattin Duran, Tarik Ongun.

I have made two lists:

- one for the opportunity that we see two referees of the same country and ..

- one for the opportunity that we only see one referee per country which is probably more probable..

List 1 (if two referees from one country are allowed; according to shown perfomances)

List 2 (if two referees from one country are not allowed; according to politics..)

Furthermore, I have chosen a pool of 4th Officials:

Normally, there are six 4th Officials, the following pool contains nine names (in case if list 1-conditions are right or in case if list 2-conditions are right..):

The recent poll defined our top10 list of referees for the last season 2010/2011 which includes competitions like UEFA CL, EL, CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores, AFC Asian Cup and CONCACAF Gold Cup as well. The U17 World Cup is not included in this season. As I had a few other names in my brain, I will present both, your and my list.

Carlos asked me to that as most of the readers and voters here are European so that it is nearly impossible that everyone has seen each match of Pezzotta or Roldan.